Page:Lectures on the French Revolution of John Acton.djvu/126

114 were first-fruits of liberty, and the meed and reward of Liberals. No man can tell in what country such things would remain without effect. In France it was believed that civic courage was often wanting. De Serre, the great orator of the Restoration, once affirmed, from the tribune, that the bulk of the representatives had always been sound. He was interrupted by a furious outcry, and challenged by his legitimist audience to say whether he included the Convention, which, by a majority, condemned the king to death. His answer, very famous in parliamentary history, was, "Yes, even the Convention. And if it had not deliberated under poniards, we should have been spared the most terrible of crimes."

The opposition presented a united front, but was rent by many stages of gravitation towards Democracy. They also were generally anxious to establish political freedom, even by the greatest sacrifices. By freedom they meant, first, deliverance from known and habitual causes of oppression. True, there might be others; but they were less clear and less certain. All European experience proclaimed that the executive constantly masters the legislative, even in England. It was absurd to suppose that every force that, for centuries, had helped to build up absolutism, had been destroyed in two months. They would rise again from the roots, and the conflict would be constantly renewed.

The salvation seemed to lie in the principle that all power is derived from the people, and that none can exist against the people. The popular will may be expressed by certain forms; it cannot be arrested by obstacles. Its action may be delayed; it cannot be stopped. It is the ultimate master of all, without responsibility or exemption, and with no limit that is not laid down in the Rights of Man. The limits there defined are sufficient, and individual liberty needs no further protection. Distrust of the nation was not justified by the manner in which it had chosen and instructed its deputies.

In studying this group of public men, men to whom the future belonged, we are forced to admit the element